5 Answers
5

In Offset printing the fifth colour is an additional spot colour, which could be anything (of course depending on the printer/printer services). I've yet to hear what is the single most common "fifth colour".

Why? For example in (now discontinued) hexachrome (CMYKOG, yes 6 colours) printing process orange and green were added to achieve wider colour gamut and better colour reproduciton. Also, it could be unmixable colour such as Pantone metallics or fluorescent to add more effect, or some secret mixture which would be printed onto your paper money for added security.

And as Philip Reagan commented, the fifth colour is usually a crucial colour for the corporate/brand image, such as the "Coca-cola red", "IBM blue" or "Ferrari red"; when the colour is best to be consistent (and not dependent on the mixing).

The most accurate answer, with cost estimates, you can only get from your print rep.

I've been way out of the print design loop...I had no idea hexachrome is no longer done. It was a promising option a few decades ago. FYI, one of the more popular 5-color printing examples in the past was WIRED magazine. They were known for printing every issue in CMYK with one additional flourescent/neon/metallic spot color.
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DA01Sep 27 '11 at 15:56

@DA01 - Pantone's Hexachrome may be discontinued, but I am fairly sure something similar is still used in packaging - i.e. 6 (or 8?) colour process rather than 4 + spots.
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e100Oct 3 '11 at 17:56

In addition to koiyu's excellent answer, a fifth color might be a "double hit" of a color which is being printed in CMYK, to make it pop. For example, Pantone 186 red might print a little muddy in process, so a fifth plate is added of the same Pantone 186 in spot, to make the red brighter.

I've also heard of the fifth "color" used to refer to a varnish coat, because it's a fifth plate.

Depending on your printer and printing process, 5-color printing does not have to include C, M, Y, or K. I worked in a print shop in 'long ago times' (shortly after Guttenberg got his start) and we would generally not overprint any of the colors, so a very complex job could have 6 or 10 distinct colors that were printed individually. Each of those colors would be distinct and unique, none of them were cyan, magenta, or yellow.

It has become much more economical in modern printing to use CMYK colors to overprint (blend colors on the page) to create the full spectrum of color without having to load the press with a custom or Pantone ink.

Normally this would refer to a spot colour printed alongside process colours. The most common application for this to use spot black ink for text in a process colour document. Process black is translucent and not suitable for printing black text, so a spot black is often used for black text on a process colour document. Many colour glossy magazines are done like this.

Other applications include colours that can't be reproduced in process colour, such as metallics, or specialised inks such as varnish.